Grammar police

[chattychattyboomba]

there is no such word as 'Et' as in 'I et spaghetti for dinner, I et the lot!'
If you want to say 'eat' as in past tense, the word, my friends is 'ate' ATE! Do you hear me!!!!???

Also 'i were sat there' NO! Wrong!
I was sitting there... OR I sat there.
Got it? Good.

[chattychattyboomba]

I would LOVE you to be correct. But you're not...
Put your smug smirk away, and read it again.

[NotTreadingGrapes]

Read what again?

The OP, or the link?

I've read both, (not that I needed to, what with my master's in linguistics, but hey ho)

[WillieWaggledagger]

the pronunciation 'et' is perfectly correct. you would write it 'ate'

oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/dictionary/eat

[BreconBeBuggered]

I can't see anything wrong with 'et'. Or dialects where non-standard grammar is used consistently, though I don't think 'et' is a dialect pronunciation.
There's a higher quality of pickiness in pedants' corner. I think the thread is fine where it is.

[SPsCliffingAllOverMN]

I say 'were' as 'war'

I also dont say 'the' Oh dear god, your head would explode if you heard me speak. I type how I speak as well.

I will also say 'i were sat there'

Boom! head exploded

[Hopasholic]

Wen I gorrup, I went t' kitchen to find there were nowt int tin.

Nowt wrong wi Yorkshire!

Puts flat cap on and takes ferrit out for a walk

[SPsCliffingAllOverMN]

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Gah.

Why is it the people keenest to pick fault are always the most ignorant about what grammar actually is?

Or what habbibu explained, more patiently.

I love a nice Yorkshire accent.

[miffybun73]

Yes, I hate both "et" for "ate" and I was sat.

Also, when people miss out "to" as in, heard in playground:

"Let's go Sienna's house after school" or "x needs to go toilet", "go shops" etc.

[DonDrapersAltrEgoBigglesDraper]

Eek, apologies for my part - I'm Antipodean and had never come across the his/he's thing before.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

I don't mind 'ate' pronounced 'et' any more than I mind envelope pronounced 'onvelope'. What always makes my toes curl is when my Sheffield friend uses 'tret'.... as the past tense of 'treat'.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

You were fine, don, I think? There's loads of quirks, we can't all know them all.

[WillieWaggledagger]

that's a norfolk thing too cogito ('tret'). and 'shew' as the past tense of 'show'

i love it

[Dawndonna]

Nawfolk! I driv round city today. I shew my mate my noo top.
I writ a letter to the doctor.

Aarghhhhh! I've been living here for sixteen years and I'm still not used to it!

[CheesyPoofs]

My mother, who has a linguistics degree and is a former English teacher, says it's fine to use bad grammar in informal speech, especially if it's linked to a regional accent AS LONG AS YOU know not to use it formally or in writing.

I'm from up north and I might say "I've et my spagettti". But I would never write it like that and I'd never say it in a meeting at work for example.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

'Bad' grammar is only 'bad' if you subscribe to the theory of prescriptive grammar. Which, as a country, we do less than the French.

Non-standard grammar is fine in formal speech so long as you're not speaking to people who judge on daft things.

I was at a conference last week where plenty of US southerners were using non-standard plural forms and no-one was demanding they renounce their professorships of English Lit.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

My Afrikaner friend's English is excellent but there's one nuance (?), dialect (?) I still find funny and that's when she asks ..'are you coming with?' No personal pronouns. Not 'with us' or 'with me' etc just a heavy emphasis on the with

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Huh. Now I would say that, and I grew up in the East Mids. I've no idea if it's a dialect thing, though.

What I do notice a lot is Americans saying 'I want for' or 'I'd like for you to tell me'. It's rather nice, but odd. Apparently they find that 'I'd like you to tell me' sounds rather blunt.

[SomeKindOfDeliciousBiscuit]

Come on, OP. You know you have to be quite lighthearted to post this sort of guff. If you get arsey when proven (that's pr- oh- ven) wrong, you just look like a tit.

[dyslexicdespot]

CheesyPoofs-

Does your mother think that books written in regional dialects should be banned?

It would be a shame to dismiss the authors like Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston or Charles Dickens.

colloquial expressions

[IrritatingInfinity]

I get eat and ate wrong ALL the time. I blame my parents

[MadBusLady]

I say "et" and I'm from SE, it can't just be a Yorkshire thing.

[MadBusLady]

Or Chaucer.

[DollyClothespeg]

"I et the lot!" is perfectly correct when SAYING it round here (Yorkshire!) and is exactly how I would say it.
"I et it all!"
Writing it though? No. Just no. That would annoy me as I get irrationally wound up at things like that!